What drives patent performance of German biotech firms? The impact of R&D subsidies, knowledge networks and their location

This paper aims to explain whether firm-specific features, their engagement in collaboration networks and their location influence patent activity of biotech firms in Germany in the period 1997-2004. First, we demonstrate that non-collaborative R&D subsidies do not increase patent intensity of biotech firms. Second, the number of knowledge links biotech firms is also not influencing their patent performance. However, strong and robust evidence is found that some but not too much cognitive distance between actors involved in R&D collaborations increases patent performance of firms. Third, being located in a biotech cluster does positively impact on patent performance.